The only thing scarier than Silent Hill is Silent Hill in first-person
Huh. Demo. What's going on with that demo?
Though Silent Hill received an upgrade of sorts courtesy of Silent Hill: Shattered Memories on the Wii in 2009, the original 20-year-old game is one of few instalments of the psychological horror series that arguably hasn't aged well. Fans of old still appreciate it, of course, but new players may struggle with its dated graphics and control scheme.
Until now, perhaps.
Though not sanctioned by Konami, a long-time fan has remade the opening of Silent Hill. While it's only a few minutes long, the demo has taken five months to complete as all assets were traced and remade from the original models, plus the switch to first-person perspective brings you (uncomfortably) closer to Harry's horrifying ordeal.
Here, take a look yourself:
"I had to do HOURS of info research and gameplay viewing (as well as playthroughs myself) in order to get EVERY detail about the original game as I could," explained creator Zero Trace Operative on a dev blog (thanks, PC Gamer).
"Luckily I ran into the English book translation and model extractions from the OG game. Of course I wasn't going to use the actual assets, so I began tracing in 3d. This resulted in a 99% faithful rebuild of the world from scratch. It was a truly intimate experience with one of my favorite games of all time. Seeing the ins and outs of the world through Team Silents eyes, and even partly walking in their shoes in my own way. Breathtaking to be honest."
Zero added they opted to remake Silent Hill as "Silent Hill 1 and its fans got no love on its 20th birthday".
Wondering why the opening sequence doesn't quite match the original game? Yup, me too. But Zero could explain that, too: "I originally wanted to have an entire driving sequence matching the one shown in the OG game. With Cybil riding past Harry and everything, along with the Silent Hill theme playing from the radio as a weird immersive easter egg. I even got the motorcycle finished and hidden behind Harry's jeep in the 3D scene, but it would've taken far too long."
To play it yourself, head to the Silent Hill Remake demo on itch.io. You should probably be quick about it, mind; Konami's probably typing up a C&D as I speak.
Secret features are still being discovered in the original PlayStation 2 version of Silent Hill 2 18 years after the seminal psychological horror game was released. Twitterers punk7890 and Bigmanjapan discovered that a secret mini-map and a Save Anywhere feature can be unlocked once players have completed the game and received the Dog Ending.
A group of volunteer developers and modders have also been quietly enhancing and improving the PC release of celebrated psychological horror, Silent Hill 2.
